If you managed to score one of the limited edition Halo Infinite Xbox Series X bundles this week, congratulations. You basically won the lottery. I hate you. GameStop failed me, and from the looks of things on Twitter and Reddit, it failed most people. Pre-orders were meant to go live at 8am PT on GameStop’s website exclusively for Pro members, but even if you were a subscriber and showed up on time, your chances of getting one were almost zero. I understand that the world is still suffering from manufacturing limitations due to the pandemic, but I can’t believe this is still the only way to buy gaming products. The lack of transparency makes it feel like I’m competing against bots and scalpers in a battle I have no chance of winning, and I’m about ready to give up.
I’ve lost count on the number of things I’ve tried and failed to buy online. The PS5, Xbox Series X, Switch OLED, a number of Amiibo, countless Pokemon cards, and even collector’s editions of games like Metroid Dread have slipped through my fingers as I sat at my desk pounding the refresh button. It took me four months, two Discord servers, and a dozen hours of refresh spamming to finally find a 30 series GPU, and it still wasn’t even the one I was really after. Trying to buy new hardware online is practically a full time job, which would explain why there’s so many scalpers out there who have literally made it their gig. They can all burn in hell.
Things are going to sell out, but that’s not really the issue. Parents stabbed each other with their car keys at Toys R’ Us back in 1996 over Tickle Me Elmos, and those weren’t even a fraction as cool as a PS5 - they didn’t even have 4K. I’m not whining because the thing I wanted sold out, I’m whining because I never even had a chance to buy it.
Nobody wants to go line up in front of a GameStop at 8am and stand there for two hours to get an Xbox, but you have to admit that at least there’s a meritocracy to that system. I worked at Best Buy through several console launches and yearly iPhone releases and the system was always the same. Customers start lining up as early as they like, and a manager comes outside an hour before the store opens to hand out tickets based on the number of available products. Everyone that has a ticket is guaranteed a product, and anyone that doesn’t can go home and try again next time. It sucked to show up and not get what you came for, but at least you could leave knowing that the people who did get one were there before you. It’s fair, and most importantly, transparent.
These days, lining up outside the store usually isn’t even an option. My local GameStop doesn’t do in-store pre-orders or sales for new Pokemon cards, there were no Switch OLEDs available, and I’ve never seen a PS5 or an Xbox Series X in store. It’s the same with GPUs, which you’d never find in-store unless you live close to a Microcenter. My local Microcenter was effectively compromised by a gang of scalpers that took control of the line, so that was never a real option either.
The only success I’ve ever found buying hardware online was with the Steam Deck and the Playdate. Both devices were sold directly by the manufacturer, so they were able to keep pre-orders open to meet customer demands. Retailers like Best Buy and GameStop don’t have that luxury because they can only sell as much stock as they have. The bots and scalpers have the system rigged, and the rest of us don’t have a chance.
What we need is a lottery system. If you show up at 8am when the product releases, you’ll be given a number. Once everyone has had a chance to register, numbers are chosen at random until all of the product is sold out. There’s no such thing as first-come-first-served on the internet, and a lottery is the only fair way to do it. At least we’d never feel like we missed out because someone clicked refresh a fraction of a millisecond before us, and we’d have the peace of mind that more consoles are making it into the hands of actual players and not resellers. It’s not much, but it would help online shopping feel less terrible.